Creative Director Describes 'Star Trek: Legacy'

Mad Doc Software's Ian Lane Davis chatted about Star Trek Legacy, of which he is
creative director, calling the upcoming game from Bethesda Softworks "sexy action-filled space combat" that should appeal both to longtime Trekkers and to gamers who don't consider themselves primarily Star Trek fans.

"Players become the Admiral of a task force of warships and must lead their fleet to victory in large-scale battles," summarised Davis for Houston Vehicles Online, noting that the game was focused "on bringing the Big Four races to next gen consoles and the PC for the first time ever." The single player mode includes Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Borg characters "all over the timeline."

Davis said he was excited about "the look, the feel, the actual gameplay – the story spanning the entire series – so many things converging in a way that really makes sense." Legacy, he added, will differ from Armada in that the former "is focused 100% on the combat of your fleet and has a unique 'Trek Realism' that’s never been seen before in a game."

The production team are all fans of the series, according to David, who said they "have had our hands in the Star Trek universe for some years, and we have our hearts set on delivering something really special for fans across the board." The game has the major ships from every series and new details about the alien races developed with Paramount but never seen on the shows.

The game, he added, is "designed to be filled with action and be playable intuitively with a console controller." Within missions, players must give orders to all ships in the fleet but can take over each ship's captaincy to control phasers and other weapons. "This isn’t a micromanagement game with a million ship systems to manage, but an action-filled game that has all of the core controls you’d want." He added that the detail in showing damage to the ships breaks new ground and ships break apart at the seams.

Davis said he was not ready to discuss storylines or new races developed specifically for the game, but said he thought fans would be happy with new developments in the Star Trek universe as well as with the graphics.